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Judgment
The First Appeal filed before the State Commission was delayed by 128 days. The State Commission held that the appeal was barred by time.
We have heard the counsel for the petitioner at the admission stage of this case. The OP/Petitioner gave the following excuses in order to explain the delay. The District Forum passed the order on 25.07.2014. Counsel for the Opposite Party collected the certified copy on 07.08.2014. It was provided to the Divisional Office of New India Assurance Company Limited-OP on 22.10.2014. There is a gap of 45 days, which delay was never explained. The name of the Advocate was also not disclosed.
It is further contended that the case could not be processed thereafter, due to Diwali vacation and computer software problems. It must be borne in mind that there is only one holiday on Diwali. There is no Diwali vacation as such, so far as the offices of Insurance Companies are concerned.
It is further stated that the Divisional Manager, Kalyan, was busy in resolving the said issues i.e., software problems etc. Again, there were vacations on 02.11.2014 and 03.11.2014. The Divisional Manager was attending Pune Court on 05.11.2014. The Divisional Manager was thereafter out of station due to his wife''s health issues and resumed duty on 14.11.2014. The file was in the cabin of the said Divisional Manager. Consequently, the file could not be processed till date. No affidavit or the medical certificate of the wife of the Divisional Manager saw the light of the day. After assuming the duty, the Divisional Manager immediately prepared the file and sent the same to Mumbai Regional Office-V of the OP on 17.11.2014, which is the decision making and allotting authority for filing an appeal.
Again, the matter was allotted to the Counsel on 18.11.2014. The Advocate issued letter to the OP in respect of the mandatory deposit as well as professional fees. Consequently, the demand draft was prepared on 05.12.2014 and mandatory deposit was submitted before the Thane District Forum on 19.11.2014. The office did not find any certified copy. It was traced at Bhiwandi Office at Kalyan, on 08.01.2015. It also transpired that, that order was wrongly tagged with the payment voucher.
Learned counsel for the OP vehemently argued that he is ready to pay the costs and opportunity should be granted in his favour to argue the case before the State Commission.
It is apparent that the petitioner could have saved enough time by pursuing the matter diligently and promptly. It is not understood why the Advocate sat on the certified copy for a period of 45 days. Computer software problems cannot take away the whole day or days. Such like problems can be solved in a jiffy. No medical certificate, no affidavits, saw the light of the day. It is also interesting to note that the learned State Commission has pointed out all these flaws. While filing this Revision Petition before us, the learned counsel for the OP did not remove those defects. No affidavits were filed before us despite it was pointed out to the counsel for the petitioner. This delay smacks of malafide intention on the part of OP. The State Commission has emboldened its decision by a number of authorities.
We see no merit in this Revision Petition and therefore, the same is dismissed.